


The Long Way Home

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: First Time, Future Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a lull between galactic enemies (i.e., the Ori defeated, the Wraith on the run, Atlantis returned to Earth), Daniel is presented with several interesting changes. This story takes place after the end of both the SG-1 seasons and the Atlantis seasons, as well as both the SG-1 movies (as of 2010).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Way Home

It was a mark of how hard Daniel had been working that, at first, he took this particular conversation with Jack at face value.

Jack called him on the phone one harried Monday afternoon and said, "You need a break, I need a break, it's been way too long since we made the time for a chess and hockey marathon. How about you meet me in Minnesota on the 17th? We'll make it an extra-long weekend."

"I'm not working any harder than I always do," Daniel protested mildly. He never liked being reminded of his near misses, his all-nighters, his evacuations because of explosive decompressions, Kull warriors, kidnappings and hostage-takings, Ancient brain connecting devices, etc., parasitic insects, death, etc. etc. Etc.

"That's my point, Daniel. I read the reports on SG-1, you know. Just be glad you don't have to read mine."

"Look -- I never denied that your job is actually harder than mine now," Daniel replied.

Jack made a dismissive noise that was kind of like "phtt." He said, "You want to ask Landry and get back to me?"

Daniel didn't answer immediately, but he didn't hang up either. Knowing Jack would wait him out, he sat there, listening to the open line to Washington, noticing how much he missed his old friend. It was a well-established fact, this missing of Jack, but usually Daniel didn't dwell on it. But Jack was so right -- it had indeed been too long. And also, Daniel realized, as he imagined the Minnesota cabin, he missed something else. The outdoors on Earth. He missed seeing a landscape other than his own tiny suburban back yard for ten minutes at seven a.m. when he poked his nose outside while the coffee was brewing. It was true that he was outdoors all the time -- but it was on planets that weren't Earth.

Still relying on Jack's listening patience, Daniel closed his eyes. He could remember Jack's old place clearly -- the rusty green of the woods that lined the little pond, the camoflaging brown hue of the house itself, with its scents of old mildewing fabric and musty canvas and the harsher tang of old smoke and ashes from the fireplace. He could feel, in memory, how smooth the stones of the handmade chimney felt.

Yeah. Jack was right. Daniel needed a break, and the lake cabin was the perfect spot. Old friends, old places.

"Yes, I'll ask him. I don't see a problem."

"Great. It's a date." And Jack hung up.

^^^

It took Daniel until late afternoon of their second day at the cabin, when he awoke from an unscheduled outdoor nap in one of the strangely comfortable, cushionless Adirondack loungers, his book lying on his chest, to realize there was a hidden agenda to Jack's invitation. The realization must have crept in on him while he was sleeping, burbling up from his unconscious.

He woke, and glanced around, and everything looked blurry, so he rubbed his eyes, discovering in the process that he had no glasses. He leaned a little and deduced that Jack must have slipped them off his face and folded them atop the book. Jack being the only other human for miles.

He put them on, and put the book aside, and sat up and stretched. Jack was at the end of the dock, sitting cross-legged on an old boat cushion, angled so as to divide his view between Daniel and the water, and he was tying flies.

"I'll put on some coffee," Daniel said, and Jack glanced his way and smiled and pulled the bill of his ballcap a little lower, against the lowering sun.

Without asking, Daniel brought out two cups when the coffee was ready. He knew Jack's habits. He'd washed his face while the pot was brewing, and also changed his shirt. He felt much more relaxed now than he had when he'd arrived, and yet, much more alert and clear, all at the same time. He had looked at himself in the mirror as he ruffled his hair into place, and found himself wondering at the timing of the trip.

How did Jack know he had needed this? Needed an escape to the brooding, cathedral silence of the summer woods, where the biggest excitement was half a dozen ducks landing on the pond at once? The loudest noise the flap of a beaver's tail, carried over the surface of the water?

But he did need it, and Jack had figured it out from a thousand miles away, sight unseen. _Guess that's what happens after nearly two decades of saving the galaxy together._ Daniel had smiled at himself in the mirror, when that thought arose.

When he stepped out onto the deck with the coffee mugs in hand, he found that Jack had put away his tackle box and was standing at the deck railing, bare-headed, watching the progress of a ripple that might have been a carp, or possibly a large turtle. As always, Daniel got just a little jolt of lust when it registered on his brain just how handsome, how sexy, how solid and full of presence, Jack was. Daniel had wondered, through the years, if the charge he felt around Jack would someday fade, or diminish, or be blunted by frustration or resignation. So far, none of that had ever happened. He didn't worry about his feelings any more. In fact, he had learned to find a certain bittersweet savor in his reactions, even though he was the only one present to enjoy them.

Daniel handed him his cup, and Jack glanced at him with an expression that Daniel was able to interpret as thanks, and as a subtle sizing up of the effects of Daniel's nap, rolled into one.

Daniel found himself smiling again. He still did that a lot around Jack, too. "Yeah, I feel about a thousand percent better. You knew I needed a nap, and furthermore you knew I needed this break."

Jack smiled at the water. "That I did," he said, and drank some coffee.

Daniel watched him for a moment. Saying those things out loud cleared them out of his mind and led him to his next realization -- about the hidden agenda.

"And now that you've got me up here, all rested and recharged and my native good humor" --Jack snickered a little at this, as Daniel had intended-- "restored, you have something else you want to run by me or spring on me, or something like that. So. I'm all ears."

Jack turned to him then, openly chuckling.

"Correct on all counts, Doctor Jackson." He leaned one elbow on the railing and gathered his thoughts. His face turned serious as he met Daniel's eyes. "I miss that -- how well you get me. And in light of that, this is going to sound selfish. But anyway. Selfish or no, here's the thing. I want you to come and work directly at Homeworld. In D.C." Daniel drew a surprised breath, but Jack didn't pause. "I want you to coordinate the training of all the new staff, and of the in-services you'll figure out the existing staff is way overdue for once you start thinking about it; you need to write the new manual we need for offworld teams, the one you've been bitching for for the last five years; vet the interviewers, train the trainers, give ideas for recruiting. Recruiting everyone, I mean -- even the 302 and 303 pilots. The position would involve travel, but not off world much. To various Air Force and Marine Corps bases here on Earth, to check out personnel. And a lot of writing. And videos. We badly need someone to digest and pass on the essential flesh-and-blood history of the first years of the program along with the actual written-down procedures, you know? But what finally got the brass to let me proceed with this was the washout rate figures under the existing recruiting procedures. They've always been too high. But with the new expansions of the last few years, they've finally listened to me about that."

He cleared his throat then, and turned away and spoke over the water. "We need the program's heart, to do this and do this right. Basically."

Daniel tried to gather his wits. He was extremely surprised. He'd had no advance warning of this at all, officially or unofficially. He wondered if Mitchell knew; if Landry did. But no, he realized. Given how far back their friendship went, Jack wouldn't say something official to the mountain's CO or Daniel's team leader first, when it came to Daniel's career. Jack would want to tell him the idea privately; to ask him personally. That's why he'd brought Daniel out here to a familiar, safe place, where it was just them -- away from both politics and Daniel's other, competing loyalties. Jack wanted to ask him first, friend to friend. But something about the word Jack had used --

"Um. That's very flattering description, but Jack. I don't know that I'm that. In fact I'm sure I'm not. Janet was our heart, really. I think we've just been limping along without one, since she's been gone. And now...." It was harder than he'd thought, suddenly, to define himself. He'd just done what he did; fought who or what had to be fought, scrambling to apply whatever hardwon knowledge or technology they uncovered to the battle at hand. "I'm just, I don't even-- I'm a linguist. A translator. And an archaeologist. I'm SG-1's archaeologist. That's it."

Jack listened intently, but without looking at him. "I still miss Janet, too. But to me you are. The heart."

Daniel blinked. That revelation expanded into the air around them for a moment before Jack continued.

"So I know you might not want to do this, for a couple of reasons. You might not want a posting that would take you away from the gate. And now that Atlantis is here, floating right there, out there, next door to San Francisco...."

Jack didn't have to finish the sentence. They both had wondered, without ever talking about it, if and when Daniel would tear himself away from all his unfinished projects in Colorado, and from his sense of loyalty to the team, and finally go to the city he'd spent years obsessing over.

"I'm not looking for an answer on the spot," Jack said. "I know I sprung this on you. But I didn't want to send a memo, you know? And I didn't want to do this in some official way."

He rested both his elbows on the railing. Daniel watched him, and realized what was bothering him about how formally polite Jack had sounded through the whole speech. Usually he didn't get Jack's formal side. Too much water under the bridge for that. But the formality was a signal: It had been hard for Jack to say all that. Hard for him to ask Daniel. Daniel was unsettled. Not floored, exactly, but... Okay, maybe he was floored.

Just as he'd said: He'd spent the better part of two decades looking upon himself as SG-1's archaeologist. Full stop. The only thing since Sha're's death that had tugged at him, pulled him willingly in a new direction, away from the team, had been Atlantis. Yes, he'd changed directions drastically because of Ascension, but that had been all reaction, something he had no real choice about when the choices were Ascension or death. His yen for Atlantis had been entirely voluntary. Other than the lure of the City of the Ancients, he had felt dug in where he was, where had been for so long. This invitation seemed to somehow change that. And he knew why -- clearly, suddenly. Because it came from Jack, as a direct plea.

He stood there, his coffee cooling in his hand, thinking about everything that had happened to him since Catharine had intercepted him in the rain, in front of a hotel. He stood there, in this old beloved place, thinking about the past. His own past. Something he actually spent very little time on, considering the past was, you know, his thing.

What finally emerged in words was: "I never did ask why you sent Sam and not me to Pegasus, a couple-three years ago." He caught Jack's minute wince and went on: "I guess I never asked because I was afraid to hear the answer."

Jack answered him immediately. Which came as a bit of a surprise. And answered very calmly, addressing his words to the lake. "The entire chain except me, and I mean from the President on down, wanted a military commander after Weir. They didn't entirely trust Sheppard at that time, and they sure as hell didn't feel right about jumping him all the way up to mission commander. Certain parties felt Caldwell was out because he wanted it too much. Other parties didn't want to send any of the Earthside colonels or generals out there without offworld experience. Didn't want to, as it were, throw them in the deep end. They offered it to me, and I refused the post, actually, if you want to know. And then Carter was the consensus choice after that."

Daniel turned all that over in his mind. Bunch of new information here; stuff he'd niggled about for years but felt he wouldn't burden Jack with speculating about, mostly because Daniel hated sounding whiny. Or like he was prying. He'd rather prided himself that he'd never consciously traded on his friendship with Jack with Washington or with Landry. Except maybe for that time when he had to become a Prior. Except for then. And then, of course, he pretty much had had to do it. "Huh," he finally said. "Caldwell. So he was too eager, and that blew it for him. Kind of like ruling out the candidates for Pope."

"Yeah. Kind of."

Daniel wondered, then, if Jack would talk about why he himself hadn't wanted to go and take command of the city in the Pegasus Galaxy. But Jack didn't say. He had undoubtedly condensed an arcane and mind-numbing amount of Pentagon politics in his brief dismissal of Caldwell's failed candidacy; Daniel, who had developed an instinct for such things, could feel that. Instead, Jack skipped ahead.

"During Carter's year, Woolsey got a little drunk on the wonder of it all, and you can't really blame the guy for that -- I think it's improved his personality a bunch, myself. Also I think he had kind of a crush on her, like half the guys at Homeworld. He focused on her; got a little obsessed with her career and her priorities. But whatever. The little bastard pulled every string and sucked every dick to get himself that assignment. God, that was a trainwreck to behold. Be glad you missed it."

"I am, believe me. But ... is what you aren't quite saying that.... You mean to say, you recommended me to succeed Elizabeth?"

"I did." And then Jack turned to look at him again.

Daniel expected to feel a much larger wave of regret and longing break over him than, in fact, did. Huh. He'd have to think about that, later. When he had time. For now, he shook his head in wonder. "Son of a bitch. I never knew that either."

"You never asked," Jack said crisply.

Daniel considered that, considered what Jack had told him. Jack looked more rested than he had when they arrived, just as Daniel did himself. But there were new lines in Jack's forehead, a deeper vertical between his eyes, deeper crow's feet. More white in his hair, less silver now, and hardly any gray at all. That was not age, but stress. His job. His two stars. Not for the first time, Daniel marveled: How did he stand it, in Washington? Did he tolerate the desk because of middle age? Was it just the encroachment of bad knees, plus an aging chess player's satisfaction in being able to finally see the entire board, after doing his time as Rook, as Knight? Something else Daniel had never had the nerve to ask directly.

At first, when Jack had left the team and the mountain for good and moved to the capital, Daniel had been too hurt and too bereft and too embarrassed about those feelings to talk to Jack about it. At that time he felt himself totally unable to express those feelings -- that he missed Jack already; that he didn't want him to go. It would have sounded so whiny, so personal, so petty. And possibly so revealing. He'd found some comfort, actually, in setting his own sights on Atlantis, thinking that, well, Jack had put so much distance between them, why not a galaxy? But as time went on, Daniel had simply accepted that they both had a job to do, and so they did it, whether it led occasionally to an offworld cell, or a carpeted, more homey sort of prison.

"I never asked," Daniel agreed. "I'm just so surprised. You held out for so long against my going, is all."

"I was being selfish back then," Jack shot back, with not even a whisper of hesitation.

"Huh. And again with the flattery," Daniel laughed, but Jack looked perfectly serious. He gave that half shrug and abbreviated hand gesture that meant 'it is what it is.'

Daniel studied him, really tried to absorb what he'd seen today, what he'd learned. "Time and change," Daniel said softly. "God, but I miss General Hammond."

Jack's eyebrows signaled his instant, heartfelt agreement. "You and me both. Anyway." Jack visibly shook off the memories, his voice getting all businesslike again. "What I'd like to do is pull you upstairs now, finally, if I can. I think we need you at that level and I think it's time. The program has grown so fast since the Pegasus mission -- four offworld bases not counting the city or Midway, four ships, a new fifth one on the way, and you already know there's this new _Destiny_ thing, and there's also been some serious talk about ending the secrecy sometime soon. Soon in governmental terms, I mean. Not soon-soon."

"That's pretty high level gossip."

Jack's smile appeared, brief and heartfelt, like a momentary sunbeam through clouds. "I'll cut you a check for hazard pay. Since you do have a need to know, now."

Daniel grinned. Yeah, that kind of hazard pay was something he'd spent a lot of years specifically avoiding. He'd never wanted to be in charge of anything. He'd certainly never envied Jack that responsibility, even when he was envying his imagined ability to get things done from his new level of influence, further up the chain of command.

Daniel took a breath and braced himself by looking out over the lake, just as Jack had done, a widening of his perspective. He drained his cold coffee and set the mug on the rail. He watched the ripples on the water, stirred by the breeze, watched the changing shades of green, and thought about it. Jack was silent by his side.

"It's hard to imagine," Daniel said, after a time. "Not being with SG-1 any more, after all these years. What does your master strategy have to say about Vala and Cameron?"

Jack looked pleased for some reason. As if he'd expected Daniel to ask right away about the others, weigh the impact of this change on those he was close to, not just on himself. And was pleased that his expectations were validated.

"Up to them. Stay where they are with a new team member or two, or ask for some other post at SGC, or at Homeworld, or in the fleet. You know Carter's been nagging me to put Mitchell back with the 302 pilots. She thinks it suits his personality better. Thinks he made a mistake in the first place, asking for the team. Thinks he lost sight of what he was really good at, there for a while. Maybe ran too far in the other direction from his crash."

"Huh."

"Mal Doran -- I don't know. I can't read her. Haven't been around her enough. If you and Mitchell leave Colorado, will she stay? Could she resign now, after all the work and blood she's invested with us crazy Tau'ri?"

Daniel smiled, thinking of Vala, of her tenacity, her barrettes, her unbelievable toughness and bravery. "No, she won't resign. She won't leave the Earth mission now, I don't think. She's very ... loyal. At this point. I have to say. And there was a time I doubted her entirely. Not anymore, though."

"That's what Teal'c said, when I asked him about her a while back." Jack sounded thoughtful. Daniel nodded. It didn't surprise him that Jack had kept tabs on all the new personnel assigned to his old team, and it made perfect sense that he'd still ask for Teal'c's input.

Daniel said, "Actually? If our SG-1 is disbanded, if we're all reassigned, she might join the _Hammond_ crew. I think that's what she'd ask for."

"No shit? As what?"

"Weapons specialist, translator, pilot, you name it. The job title won't matter to her; just being there, being part of Sam's team, is what will matter."

"Huh. I missed that."

"Yeah, she and Sam are pretty good friends."

"The ladies stick together when they can."

"When they can."

Silence, then. A comfortable silence, despite the echoes of time and change and loss. Daniel thought about how the team still felt like the same SG-1 somehow, despite everything, even despite the departure of Jack, and Sam, and most recently Teal'c, who had finally rejoined the Jaffa for good after the defeat of the Ori. The three of them would always remain as part of the team to him, Daniel mused. SG-1 had added active duty members without truly losing any of those who had gone before.

The sunlight they stood in grew orange as the light began to fade. Insects of some kind -- the name escaped Daniel -- struck up a chorus in the nearest trees. The buzzing music peaked, and ebbed, and after a few seconds a second band, further along the shore, took up the same refrain. The shadows were getting longer. The breeze was cooling.

Jack said, "As long as we're doing family gossip: Cassie's asking for Atlantis."

Daniel instantly said, "She'd be great there; planetside or back in space where they belong. All that epidemiology work she did for the CDC?"

"So you knew. Bet you didn't know this: She wants a commission."

"Like Janet."

"Yup."

Daniel continued, thinking out loud: "Not like Jennifer Keller."

"No, she's asking for Air Force."

 _And like you,_ Daniel thought. Aloud, he said: "Why do I think that'll be a fast track?"

"Because you know that as much as I try not to, I play favorites."

Jack turned to him again, and there was something defiant, something a little besieged and reluctant now, in his expression. They stared at each other, and Daniel was trying to take it all in, to understand the pattern. To see the extent of the game Jack had in hand, as if the conversation were actually about chess. He had a strong feeling there was a major line of attack he was overlooking here, somehow not seeing. He'd uncovered one hidden agenda. But he couldn't put his finger on the further... thing ... he sensed. As he watched Jack, and as Jack watched him back, the core of the conversation, the one key point of the whole talk, the whole trip, actually, was gathering gravity and importance in Daniel's mind. Jack had invited him to join him in the capital. To work with him again.

Suddenly Daniel was seized by the certainty that time had been passing quickly, things had been changing, tides had been running, while he had been doggedly unaware, fighting the last war, painstakingly documenting the last set of lessons learned. He'd been keeping his head down, doing valuable work, certainly. But he was losing the signs of the times. Maybe it was time to change that.

Suddenly the breeze felt brisk and sharp, and he wondered how it was for Jack. Jack, who'd been up in the crow's nest while Daniel labored in the hold. Maybe it was indeed time for a whole new vantage.

Jack had asked him. Jack had asked for him.

And just like that, his decision was made.

"I'll come to Washington," Daniel said.

Jack's faced creased in a big smile. He said, "Good. That's good. Time for a celebratory steak, wouldn't you agree?" And he reached up and squeezed Daniel's arm, and turned to go in the kitchen door.

^^^

The evening had been full of chess, with Jack's old favorite soapstone set, as promised, and then there were hockey games on the satellite, until late. Daniel went to bed around midnight and lay there listening to an owl outside, its sharp calls coming clearly through his open window on the thick, cool air.

The next morning he rose rather later than Jack, and found Jack reading the news on his laptop and babysitting a skillet of simmering sausages and a large bowl of bubbly pancake batter.

"So. Washington life," Jack said, when Daniel had downed two cups of coffee and was ready for a plate of pancakes. "Office down the hall from me in D ring," Jack summarized, waving his pancake turner as he brought the plate to the table. Daniel raised his eyebrows and listened as he chewed. The culinary art of O'Neill improved with age. "You can have Davis as your liaison if you want him."

Daniel, his mouth full, nodded eagerly.

Jack sat down across from him and regarded him over the dishes. "I have another idea I want you to think about. I'm sick of the condo and I'm sick of living alone. I want to buy a house and I want you to move in there too."

Daniel was so astonished he almost choked on his bite of pancakes and sausage. He put down his fork and stared. "Wouldn't that look bad?" he said, when he could speak.

Something else he'd never thought about, in all this time.

Jack sighed. "Come on. We've been friends, close friends -- best friends, even -- for seventeen years. Everyone knows that. Whatever gossip there was to gossip, has been. Ten times over. And, bonus, if we have a house, we can put T., up, too, when he's back from Jaffa Land."

"Yeah," Daniel said, thoughtful, weighing it. He picked up his fork again. It would certainly be more efficient. Economical. He was still quite surprised. He didn't quite dare to look at how much he, himself, would welcome it. Would enjoy living with Jack. Because that kind of reaction had been filed away with his other inappropriate, unreturned feelings for Jack years and years ago. But he knew that the joyful reaction was there -- like the carp and the trout deep in the pond here, rarely making their presence known, but real. Very, very real.

Jack said gruffly, stabbing at his own stack of pancakes, "Shoulda done it years ago. That very first night we hauled you away from Abydos. Shoulda had you in with me right then."

Daniel met his eyes, and for one blinding instant he was consumed, overcome, with gratitude for the presence of this man in his life, now and down the years. So overcome that he felt sharp tears burning behind his eyes. Jack really did love him, in his way. Jack. Jack was someone he rarely had to explain things to, back then, during that fateful year that had changed his life forever, or now. Jack had named Daniel as someone who 'got' him -- and it went both ways; Jack understood him, too, and he usually did understand Jack right back. Even when they disagreed. Such a comfort. So rare, a friendship like this. Daniel was so grateful for all that was shared, and for all that could go unspoken, between them.

He drew a breath, two, until he was sure the tears would stay where they belonged. "Never look back," he said, smiling.

"They might be gaining," Jack said lightly, and Daniel's smile brightened in reply, and he finished his breakfast.

^^^

It took weeks, the execution of Jack's new plan. And they were busy weeks, full of crises both major and minor. A minor one: The mountain had a party for Daniel. It was embarrassing. Teal'c came back for it. Sam couldn't make it, but she sent a video. Vala got choked up and didn't even bother to try hide it. Cameron hugged him. So did Reynolds, and Dixon, and Coburn, and Satterfield, and Brynn -- an embarrassing parade of offworld team members.

Daniel's imminent departure caused Cameron to make the predicted change, too. Daniel never asked if he'd talked it through with Sam, or if Jack and Sam had read him right, without any talking needed at all. Now that Sam and Teal'c were gone, and Daniel was going, he announced that he was, in fact, going as well. He would be heading up training and tactics for the 302 fleet.

And Vala would, as Daniel had predicted, transfer to Colonel Carter's new ship. She was the only one of them all who didn't seem to harbor a subtext of subtle sadness about the change.

It really was the end of an era, Daniel thought. It was odd that his own reassignment, and not any of the others' from SG-1, past or present, was what the mountain staff had seized on to mark the change, the turn of the wheel. He didn't really like being the center of attention, but he tried to be gracious, even when Landry, with ceremony, formally retired the team's number to the resounding cheers of the assembled staff, as if they'd amounted to the equivalent of a famous NFL player or something.

Daniel got through it somehow. He said goodbye. He moved.

He had assured Jack that he didn't care about the age or style of the house where they would live, or the neighborhood; that he could settle-in wherever Jack felt comfortable. Jack knew the city, after all; he did not. Jack picked out a surprisingly Victorian house in a tony suburb of the old part of Washington. (He suspected he'd gotten a bit of advice from Sam, who had spent a good chunk of her career here, once upon a time.) The untidy pile of a house was all grey and silver and maroon and green curlicues, and it sat on a corner lot in a quiet neighborhood, several blocks away from any major street. Daniel was very surprised at this too. He hadn't fully conceptualized what he had been expecting Jack to buy, but it wasn't this. The lovingly preserved old house was so unlike Jack's cabin-like place in the Springs, and it was completely unlike the sterile, modern condo Jack had been living in since he got kicked upstairs (as he put it). Daniel privately wondered if a dog was next, and braced himself for that. He'd always been more of a cat person, back when he had a predictable schedule. Decades ago. God.

He moved to Washington. He moved in to the new house, to the new, enormous office. He had minions. But Paul mostly dealt with them. And Paul provided a buffer between him and the politics. He was grateful. He tried to show it. He realized he was literally mostly Earthbound now, and realized (yet another surprise) that that was just fine with him. He had thought he would miss the gate. He really didn't. He had enough memories of gate travel, of offworld adventures, to last him several lifetimes. To last anyone several lifetimes.

At night, in his L-shaped suite (at the east end of the second floor of the house), which was the old converted sleeping porch plus one of the original bedrooms, he worked on his fancy new Asgard-tech-secured computer, usually lulled by the sound of some sports channel in the master suite (at the west end) down the hall, which Jack had claimed for himself immediately. Jack's bedroom had the only television in the place, in fact.

There was a lot to do at the Pentagon. But it was strange, not facing daily mortal peril any more. Reading team reports instead of generating them. Getting, for the first time since he'd joined the program, a sense of the big picture. He did confess to enjoying that part. Sometimes at night he had bad dreams, about old missions, about the Goa'uld, about death and torture and those whom he'd lost. A delayed reaction, he supposed. When he would wake in the dark, shivering, it was comforting to know someone else was in the house.

One Friday night, several months in to the new arrangement, Daniel had brought work home and was half lying, half sitting along Jack's big sofa in the living room. The room would have been called the parlor when the house was new. It had gigantic, fourteen-foot-tall sliding doors that separated it from the formal front hall on one side and the dining room on the other, hand-carved lovingly from solid oak, with the original brass hardware still installed. The soapstone chess set from the cabin had pride of place on an antique occasional table in front of the ornate marble fireplace. The leather sofa didn't really match the room, but it was comfortable. Daniel had files and papers scattered all around him when Jack came home, and Daniel smelled him before he saw him -- he arrived through the kitchen door in a fragrant cloud of garlic and curry.

"Takeout," Jack announced, quite unnecessarily.

They ate in near silence, side by side on the sofa, in a contented, end-of-the-week haze. When the cartons were empty, Jack strolled into the kitchen and came back with two glasses of red wine. He moved some of Daniel's files from the ottoman to the floor and put his feet up.

"Ah," Daniel said, and put his head back on the cushions. Friday night in the capital. And an extended spot of calm for the Tau'ri homeworld. The Lucian pirates were mostly on the run. The Wraith frustrated and much reduced in numbers. The Replicators, the same. Peace had broken out, basically. Paul Davis was predicting the program would go public within the year. Some of the Air Force line staff had started a pool on the date.

Daniel looked over at Jack, who was sipping his wine and looking as contented as Daniel felt. For someone who'd built his whole career on the military, warlike way of life, Jack seemed to be adapting to peace extremely well. Except for one thing.

Daniel spoke his thought without weighing it. Later, he would be sure his unconscious had already figured out what was going on. Just as it had at the lake, when it uncovered Jack's hidden agenda. But in the moment, all he thought about was how good the wine tasted, how comfortable it was to have a belly full of good food, and a friend at his side. A friend who should be happy. Not lonely. Not alone.

"Jack," Daniel said, and waited for the serene brown eyes to swivel his way. "You're not dating. At all."

Jack looked faintly offended. "So?"

Daniel frowned. He'd revived a mystery. Now it was right there in plain sight. A mystery that needed explaining. Jack had been alone for a long time, not married, sure. But in the old days, back in Colorado, sometimes -- "You've been known to date, every now and then. From time to time."

The raised eyebrow in response. Pure Teal'c. It made Daniel grin, but didn't dissuade him. He warmed to his subject. "Kerry Johnson? That woman from Area 52; what was her name?" Daniel thought back further. He decided to forebear to mention a couple of painful offworld romances of Jack's he knew of. He even would have mentioned Sara, because he was pretty sure Jack had never really gotten over her, except he knew she had remarried. He knew this because a while back, he'd checked. He'd never discussed it with Jack, but he was sure Jack knew too. He raised his own eyebrows, telepathically inviting an explanation.

Jack waved a hand. "Ancient history."

"My point exactly."

"Daniel." And there was the scary death stare. Daniel snickered that Jack would attempt to use it on him, after all this time. Jack went on, sternly, "Don't even think about fixing me up with anyone. And fair warning: Don't expect to get away with not dating yourself if you're going to go all worried and big brotherly about me."

Ah, that was Jack. Counterattack was always the best defense. "Point to you," Daniel conceded. But... but... "Don't you get lonely?" he persisted.

"Don't you?" Jack retorted.

"I asked you first." Childish, but effective.

Jack held his glance for a long moment, and, with as deadpan a delivery as Daniel had seen in 17 years, said, "Not any more." He took an emphatic drink from his glass, then, as if the subject were closed, and got up to take the empty cartons to the kitchen.

But it niggled at Daniel. Jack was so wonderful; so funny and smart and maddening and handsome. He shouldn't be alone. He should be having fun, having some companionship, getting laid once in a while, for god's sake. It pained Daniel, to think of Jack, alone. Once it would have pained Daniel to think that Daniel himself couldn't have him, but Daniel had managed to put that aside. He'd carefully concealed his lack of a binary sexual orientation from everyone in the military, as a form of self preservation, and he'd grown used, long since, to understanding that Jack was off limits even as his feelings for Jack had never really changed from their initial, intense, deep attraction.

He didn't worry about his own unenforced but accepted celibacy, not any more. He'd been married to his job, with a few spectacular, not very pleasant exceptions, for a long time. No one had ever taken Sha're's place in his heart. His love for Jack was a separate, unconsummated thing, like a planet he'd never visit. And for Daniel, that had been that. For years. Case closed.

But Jack. Why should Jack be alone? The kind of companionship he was pretty sure Jack had had with Sara, until tragedy had struck, was too sweet to forswear forever. Jack deserved to be happy. In fact, no one deserved it more.

The fact of Jack's apparently self-inflicted celibacy bugged Daniel. He kept thinking about it, now that he and Jack saw each other every single day.

One Saturday morning he was shaving, having arisen very late, and he looked at his reflection, as he leaned nearsightedly close to the mirror, his things messily scattered on his side of the double sink, Jack's things neatly arranged on his side (the old house had only one upstairs bathroom, which the two of them amicably shared), and he thought, _Wait a minute._

He glanced at the countertop. It was damning. It was right out of a situation comedy; his and hers sinks, his and hers stuff, except it ... wasn't like that?

 _Wait a minute,_ Daniel thought, stupidly repeating himself. _He's not alone in every way, is he? And, hello. Neither are you._

He put down his razor and fumbled for his glasses. He stared at his now-sharp reflection, stunned at how blind he'd been. Not literally, but the metaphor fit.

Was this just some sort of weird 'Boston Legal' friendship? No one else would put up with them and so they made a partnership? Okay, maybe not those lawyers; maybe they were actually more classic -- more like Felix and Oscar?

A recent memory came to him, a memory of an indignant Jack, sipping red wine and declaring that he wasn't lonely any more.

Daniel's eyebrows tried to make contact with the ceiling. He remembered other phrases, other -- _Jesus_ \-- other signals Jack had sent him, which were nothing less, Daniel now understood, than careful attempts to feel him out -- as long ago as the very first conversation they had about Daniel taking this job. And maybe there'd been other messages Daniel had similarly lost, down through the years.

 _"To me, you are. The heart."_

"As long as we're doing **family** gossip..."

"As much as I try not to, I play favorites."

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the saints and fairies. Jack was settling; settling for what he could get. What he thought he could get.

Jack -- it was crazy, it was pitiful, suffused with an almost sob-inducing irony -- Jack had assumed Daniel was straight.

Just as Daniel had assumed Jack was straight.

Daniel burst out laughing. It was that or burst into tears.

He went out into the hall. He listened. The house was quiet. He listened harder. Through the expensive storm windows and the hum of the air conditioning, he heard the sound of the little lawn mower.

Daniel was wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt, but he stalked downstairs and out into the yard, nearly tripping over Marge, the golden lab mix Jack had acquired a couple of months ago, who was lying in her accustomed spot at the top of the side-porch stairs, head on her paws, watching her lord and master mow the grass.

Daniel marched up to Jack, and when Jack caught him in his peripheral vision, he let go of the mower, triggering the kill switch, and the engine coughed and died.

Daniel stood still and folded his arms. "Did you assume I was straight? Really? Or was your reticence more about the chain of command/saving the planet stuff?"

Jack regarded him, apparently without surprise. He said, "You were either straight, or very not interested in relationships. Or it's possible you were not straight but very careful. Or just maybe, you were always very repressed. Although I personally thought the last option was least likely. The evidence was on the side of straight."

Daniel was amazed, for a moment, that Jack was so calm about this, seventeen years on, until he noticed that the big artery in Jack's neck was visibly pulsing. Jack's face, however, remained relaxed, his gaze resting comfortably as it met Daniel's. No outward sign, to the casual observer, that he was moved at all. Maybe it was because they were outdoors.

"Well," Daniel pursued, his heart beating very hard now, "or what about none of the above? Didn't you at any point ever consider the fact that I might have been in love with someone I thought was off limits -- for the better part of two decades?"

One corner of Jack's face quirked. It wasn't quite a smile. He reached up, slowly, and stroked his thumb across Daniel's cheek. It might have been a caressing gesture, except a moment later he took his hand away and flicked the shaving cream he'd removed from Daniel's face into the grass. Daniel chuckled. Jack reached over and did it again.

Then Jack's hand came up, and settled to rest, cupping Daniel's cheek. He'd apparently removed all remnants of the foam. Daniel's eyes wanted to close in response to that careful, gentle touch. He made himself keep them open, and spoke very sternly to his knees about not melting.

Jack licked his lips. "Two decades," he said. "Huh. Since you came back the first time, you mean?"

"What are you meaning by 'back'?" Daniel demanded. God. Jack's hand on his cheek. Jack's hand on his cheek! "Actually, what do you mean by 'the first time'? Are we counting Ascensions, or does the year on Abydos figure in there? For you?" Daniel knew he was rambling, and actually he wasn't making a whole lot of sense at all, but he was trying to maintain some sort of composure and hold up his end of the conversation. It was getting harder and harder. His eyes were wide. He had no idea what Jack was seeing in his face.

Jack looked down. His hand stayed where it was. "Ascensions have to count, I guess."

When Jack looked up again, Daniel must have let his determined effort at control slip, somehow. His wildly expanding heart and his melting knees must have conspired to destroy the careful insouciance he was striving for in his expression. Because Jack met his eyes, and his face changed. His hand was still on Daniel's cheek, and then it slid further back, to cup Daniel's skull, and he didn't have to pull because Daniel was moving to him, to meet him more than halfway.

They kissed, carefully, slowly, intently. When the kiss ended they were wrapped in each others' arms, pressed together from cheek to chest to knees, standing there in the yard.

Daniel swallowed hard and let his face rest against Jack's. Jack nuzzled him, as if reluctant to end the contact of his mouth with Daniel's skin.

Daniel chuckled, then let it billow into a delighted laugh. Jack's arms tightened around him, and Jack's frame thrummed in happy sympathy.

"Family gossip, you said," Daniel explained. "I was the heart of the team, to you, you said. How long have you been telling me things I didn't have the wit to listen to?"

"Who's counting," Jack said. "You got here. You made it home."

"Eventually.... I love you, Jack," Daniel said, and once more found Jack's eager mouth with his own.

A moment or a lifetime later, when Jack could speak again, he said, "Yeah, I get that now," and then they turned, arms around each other's waists, leaving the mower, and the dog, and they went inside. Upstairs. Together.


End file.
